It all started when I made a small mistake on Mother’s Day. It
was an honest mistake—one anybody might have made. As a gift for my wife, Eryn,
on her very first Mother’s Day, I bought a garden gnome, which I gave to her
along with a very romantic expression of my love and appreciation. So complete
was my naiveté at that time that I honestly believed I had done something wonderfully
thoughtful.

First, the gnome was not plastic but rather cast iron, a 70-pounder
the size of a small child that had to be moved with a wheelbarrow and had cost
me good money. This wasn’t a gnome that said “Hey, enjoy this until it breaks
or we divorce, whichever comes first,” but rather: “Honey, this gnome, like our
love, is built to last.” Also important in my defense, the weighty gnome was
not standing, in that awkward lawn jockey pose into which so many gnomes are
unhappily forced, but instead was fully supine, cradling a cork-topped bottle
of hooch in the crook of his arm. He was sprawled out with feet crossed, reclining
coolly on one elbow, with his head cocked, and bearded face wearing a
mischievous, come-hither grin. In short, the gnome was kind of sexy, which
seemed perfect. Having now been married more than a decade, I see the error of
my ways. However, I still maintain that the gnome, which to this day reclines, rusty
and drunken, in the dappled shade of a bitterbrush bush, is a quality gnome.

***

For our young daughters, the year is a necklace strung with
the sparkling beads of holidays—holidays that I find both annoyingly frequent
and often unforgivably obscure. For example, I was ignorant of the (actually
copyrighted) holiday Hoodie Hoo Day, which is celebrated each February 20 by
people who go outside precisely at noon, wave their hands over their heads like
fools, and shout “Hoodie-Hoo!” And how can I support Middle Name Pride Day on
March 10? Can’t we just agree to be ashamed
of our middle names, which should remain unspoken except when parents chastise
children for their abominable behavior? I see now that holidays were invented
primarily for kindergarten teachers, for whom the year would be tediously long
without them. In retaliation, though, I’ve begun insisting that my daughters
help me celebrate some obscure holidays that are more compatible with my own
sensibility: Do a Grouch a Favor Day on February 16 (needless to say, I receive
rather than give), Defy Superstition Day on September 13 (my answer to
evangelicalism), and Hermit Day on October 29 (which I desperately need to
celebrate after being subjected to so many other ludicrous holidays throughout
the year).

Recently we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday that everybody
in my family can get behind. While I’m not entirely comfortable commemorating a
guy who killed snakes and talked pagans out of their perfectly serviceable
native polytheism, I do recognize the solid common sense in appropriating this
religious holiday for the noble purpose of drinking Irish whiskey. This year our
five-year-old daughter, Caroline, having noticed the garden gnome, asked me if
it was a Leprechaun. I explained that it was instead a quality gnome, adding that Leprechauns only sneak around on the
night of March 17. “Do they come all the way from Ireland?” she asked. “They’re
descended from Irish Leprechauns who came to Nevada during the 1840s looking
for a pot of gold,” I replied. “They’re all over the Great Basin now, and pretty
much westernized, too—roper boots, big belt buckles, Stetsons . . . green Stetsons.” “Does Old Man Coyote eat
them?” asked Caroline, who has lately become obsessed with predation. “Nope.
Leprechaun is a trickster, like coyote, so they just play tricks on each
other.” She frowned. “But,” I continued,
trying for a quick recovery, “mountain lions love to gobble up Leprechauns.” Now
Caroline flashed a wide grin. “Cool! I bet they crunch ‘em right in their
little necks and shake ‘em hard!” Eight-year-old Hannah, whose credulity is
matched only by her nerdiness, chimed in enthusiastically, “So, Leprechauns are
non-native invasive exotics!” “Exactly,” I said. “Just like your mother. Mommy came
over the Sierra from California, trapped me, and then started having you mischievous
little Nevada babies.”

Hannah, who has watched me live trap everything from
packrats, to California ground squirrels, to cottontail rabbits, now asked if
we could trap a Leprechaun. “No problem,” I replied, “but you girls will have
to help me build the trap.” The next week was incredibly fun. Hannah first used
graph paper to devise a floor plan for the Leprechaun trap, which we would construct
from a cardboard vacuum cleaner box. She also insisted that we call it the
Leprechaun “Lounge,” which, she astutely observed, sounded welcoming. I was
impressed that Hannah included in her architectural design a porch, which
seemed a generous addition to a trap. Caroline was also generous, suggesting
that we add a potty. “You know . . . just in case.” Each evening the girls
added something new to the trap: a pile of gold coins, which they made by
wrapping quarters in aluminum foil and coloring them with a yellow highlighter;
a little doll’s bed, in case the incarcerated sprite got drowsy; and, of
course, green things, which aren’t easy to come by in the high desert.
Ultimately the girls settled on a twig of juniper, a small plastic dinosaur they
call Braucus, and a cup full of mini-marshmallows, which had been soaked
overnight in green food coloring.

***

At some point in our discussions of Leprechaunalia, I
mentioned that the wee fellows are awfully fond of Irish whiskey, which
prompted the girls to beg that I raid my liquor cabinet on their behalf. I soon
discovered, however, that I had no Jameson or Old Bushmills, but only
fifteen-year-old Redbreast, which is a whiskey so fine and rare that I once
refused to share it with my own mother, whom I love very much. Yet here were these
kids demanding that I put my liquid gold in a cardboard box while we snoozed
away the night of March 17. Because their track record with cups of other
liquids suggested that my quality
hooch would end up on the ground, I insisted upon being the one to place this
delicious bait into the trap. Just before bedtime we set up the Lounge outside
the slider door. Reluctantly, I poured a glass of the precious Redbreast, and
carefully slid it into the Leprechaun trap while the girls looked on
enthusiastically. We then nestled into our sleeping bags on the living room
floor, where we began our stakeout of the trap. After twenty minutes of
vigilance both girls fell soundly asleep, and of course I got to thinking. The
girls were cute, the trap was cute, snuggling in the mummy bags was cute. Fine.
But now the girls were asleep, and my quality
liquor remained in serious danger. The wind ripping down off the Sierra might
well upset the trap, and in any case it was a cinch that field mice and
kangaroo rats would scurry in and stick their whiskered faces into that glass. Even
evaporation seemed too cruel a fate for such quality booze.

At last I snuck out of my mummy bag, creeping on my hands
and knees so as not to wake the girls. I eased the slider open and crawled over
the sill and out into the dirt, pausing momentarily to wonder if it was warm
enough yet for scorpions to be out. Holding the Lounge’s trap door open with
one hand I reached in slowly with the other, groping for the precious glass. But
just as I did this I suddenly heard little Caroline’s voice behind me, like
Cindy Lou Who: “Daddy?” “I’m just
checking the trap, honey,” I said, as I walked back inside to snuggle her into
her bag. Caroline was soon fast asleep, and I snuck back outside and finally retrieved
the tumbler from the Leprechaun Lounge. Carrying the liquid bait that so far had
attracted only me, I shuffled over to the rusty gnome and proposed a toast to
St. Patrick. The gnome reclined, smiling broadly, as the night breeze whispered
through the juniper and bitterbrush, and a memorable
conjunction of Venus and Jupiter faintly illuminated the glowing elixir in my raised
glass. It was a quality moment and, frankly,
kind of sexy.

Essays in the Range blog are not written by the High Country News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Michael P. Branch is Professor of Literature and Environment at
the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches American literature
and environmental studies. He has published five books and many
articles on environmental literature, and his creative nonfiction has
appeared in Utne Reader, Orion, Ecotone, Isotope, Hawk and Handsaw,
Whole Terrain, and other magazines. He lives with his wife and two
young daughters at 6,000 feet in the western Great Basin desert of
Nevada.